Words like ‘phishing,’ ‘hacking,’ and ‘cyberfraud’, unheard of little more than a decade ago, are now well-established in our vocabulary. That’s because in the Internet-connected world we live in, more than 4,000 cyber-attacks are occurring every day. That’s more than 170 attacks every hour, or three attacks every minute* – and real estate-related cyberfraud is quickly becoming one of our nation’s most bothersome issues.

Criminals are hacking into the email systems of agents, clients, title/escrow officers and others involved in real estate transactions. They are using the information learned from these attacks to dupe the innocent into incorrectly wiring funds, which will likely be lost to the victims forever.

The way it typically works is simple: a hacker breaches the email account of someone involved in the deal and sees details about a real estate transaction. The hacker then sends an email to the buyer, for example, pretending to be someone involved in the closing process. The email says there has been a last-minute change and requests the buyer to wire down payment funds to a particular account. But that account belongs to the hacker.

Title industry executives, the National Association of Realtors and other real estate-related professionals have issued numerous alerts urging their members to be on guard against email and/or online fraud.

For maximum protection, start from the assumption that any email in your in-box could be a targeted attack from a criminal – and minimize the chance of anyone falling victim by practicing these prevention guidelines:

If you must send sensitive information via email, use encrypted email

Never click on links in an unverified email. Doing so can make you vulnerable to attack

Warn clients not to trust contact information in an unverified email because hackers can recreate legitimate-looking documents using their own telephone number. Before wiring any funds, the sender should call the intended recipient at a number they know is legitimate to verify the wiring instructions

Trust your instincts when an email seems suspicious. Warn clients to refrain from taking any action urged by email until they verify that a communication is legitimate

Clean out your email account often, and change your passwords regularly. Important emails may be saved in a secure location in your internal system or hard drive

Use usernames or passwords that are not easy to guess

Make sure to implement the most up-to-date firewall and anti-virus technologies available

Barbara Pronin is an award-winning writer based in Orange County, Calif. A former news editor with more than 30 years of experience in journalism and corporate communications, she has specialized in real estate topics for over a decade.
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